A Beautiful Beast

DISCLAIMER: If the word fat offends you, then this isn’t the place for you. I’m a realist,I keep(s) it real. Fat is a part of what I am (and i’m making efforts to change that), it’s not who I am. Moving on…

I did try workout tapes,Tae-Bo shortly after I graduated from High school, for about 6 month. A workout tape, and boiling cauliflower and broccoli (with too much damn salt and butter) was about the extent of what health and fitness was to me. I had not clue about nutrition and proper workout techniques.

I also dabbled in working out, as a young adult, in my early 20’s as well. A Physical Education course in college prompted/required me to not only do some type of physical activity no less than five days a week, I had to keep a daily record of my activity. I was learning so much about fitness that I decided to get serious about it. I was working out five days a week, twice a day on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. I focused on weight loss for a year and lost 98 lbs. with no gym membership and less than basic knowledge of what health really is. This time around my diet consisted of an abundance of water, baked salmon (covered in butter and brown sugar) with rice.

Life happened. I fell in love, got married, and then had a baby. I gained back all the weight I’d lost and more, and I was knee-deep in the throws of adjusting to life as a wife and nursing mother. Losing weight was not on my radar, but we had a vacation approaching and I knew something had to change. My friend found a boot camp and asked if I would join her, so I did. My first time visiting the boot camp, GPS landed me in a residential neighborhood in front of a house at the driveway. Even though I thought we’d be at a gym facility, I was happy. In my mind, if we weren’t in a gym, what more could we possibly do than sit-ups, push-ups and walking/jogging. I was wrong.I was not mentally or physically prepared for Core Complete Fitness, now Crossfit 38:16.

I wasn’t completely unaware of how the training would work. I’d done a little research on HIIT and owned a copy of the Insanity workout (that I completed once). Something about being in a garage-like setting with no heat, no air, no mirrors and no expensive equipment just seemed like it would intensify the workouts by 1,000 and that scared me. Being scared wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, I’m not afraid of hard work. But it was a change and we all know how frightening change can be.

Like I explained before, we started out at the trainer’s house working out in his driveway and garage. The movements of the workouts weren’t new to me, but they was much more intensity and I was seeing results faster that I ever had with any other weight loss plan I tried. I found myself in a love/hate relationship with this new type of workout and with the exception of running, I welcomed any challenge he threw our way.

Soon after we moved into a facility. Still no air, heat, or mirrors, but we had equipment like: weights, kettlebells, pull-up bars, and medicine balls. Our workouts transitioned from “boot camp” type workouts to full on Crossfit.

A BEAST, A BEAST! I found myself obsessed with this new way of life. I was being taught the benefits of proper nutrition. I was pushing my body to do things that I didn’t believe were physically possible for me, and I looked and felt great!
Things soon kicked up a notch and I started competing in local Crossfit Competitions we called them Throwdowns. The Throwdowns would include three to fours gyms from the area. They provided a space to see where my skill set was at and were great motivation for areas I needed improvement on.

Photo by: Betsy@swinkphotos.com

And this, my friends, was the birth of A BEAUTIFUL BEAST!

I am a beast at whatever it is that I put my mind to. I am a beast at beating this face. I am a beast when I hit the gym.